Articles of Vertu

This stereo daguerreotype shows a still-life arrangement of objects representing three of the senses. The guitar represents hearing, the spiny shells, touch, and the stereoscopic camera, sight. Also included are a book and a cherub statuette in a bell jar. The entire composition is intended to symbolize taste, connoisseurship, and scientific knowledge. "Articles of Vertu" is believed to be part of a group of twenty-six photographs by T. R. Williams that were printed as albumen stereographic cards by the London Stereoscopic Company in 1856. Williams apprenticed with the daguerreotypist Antoine Claudet, whose interest in reproducing binocular vision through stereography influenced Williams in his choice of photography as a profession.